Deprivation of the Constitutional Guarantees and the Development Induced Dispossession of the Adivasis in Plachimada

Abstract

Plachimada is known for the mobilisation of the Adivasis in the Palakkad district of Kerala, who resisted the operation of the bottling unit of the Coca Cola in their village, as the company extracted, depleted, and polluted the groundwater in the aquifer, dispossessing them by confronting the people’s right to water. The paper aims to provide a nuanced perception of how the dispossession has expunged the constitutional assurances of the Adivasi in a development democracy like India per se Kerala. The study would proceed by bringing out the interconnectedness of the setting up of the factory and the water stress felt by the Adivasis, which resulted in economic, social and cultural disaster in the Adivasi hamlets. This would be located in the larger frame of how communities dependent on common property resources are affected by mega developmental projects funded by foreign capital. The ethnographic data collected from the field work during 2018-19isanalysed to understand how the dispossession led to the cul de sac of Adivasi rights in contemporary India.